


Lacking Understanding

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Fluff, Gender Roles, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8878369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: Matteusz knows that attempting to buy anything with Charlie is hopeless. However, he never anticipated having to explain something like gender roles while shopping.





	

Charlie and shopping trips did not tend to go so well. There were a lot of human customs he didn't understand- paper money, credit cards, different brands of the same product, and, most recently, gendered marketing. Matteusz had no problem with this, but, well...other people did.

When taking Charlie shopping, Matteusz found it was a wonder that Charlie had survived this long without him (maybe Quill knew and did more than she let on). The amount of confusion Charlie encountered even when trying to use public toilets was truly impressive.

Their latest trip out (to buy Matteusz a winter coat, since his old one was at his parents' house) had come to a complete standstill, rather awkwardly in the middle of the women's section.

"I don't understand this," Charlie said, and at least he'd found the decency to keep his voice down when confused. There had been some very awkward conversations in the past.

Matteusz sighed. "Neither do I," he said quietly, but with some insistence in his tone. "But still. Is not good idea for you to buy skirt. Trust me."

Charlie looked slightly longingly at the long skirt. Matteusz didn't see the appeal of the item, but he wasn't Charlie (Charlie liked cardigans, so they definitely had different tastes). "Can you explain later? If I disagree I can still get it."

Matteusz sighed. It was absolutely impossible to refuse Charlie when he really wanted something. "Alright..." Charlie smiled instantly, and Matteusz realised he now had about an hour before he had to explain the complexities of gender roles in English to someone who really, really didn't understand.

This was going to be a long afternoon. 

-

Charlie had been looking vaguely perplexed throughout their shopping trip, and Matteusz knew his brain must be working hard, trying to figure out what was wrong with skirts. Miss Quill commented on his expression when they got home- her comment was duly ignored.

As soon as they were upstairs, Charlie sat down on the bed and immediately started to question him. "Why couldn't I buy a skirt if it's in the shop?"

"Because skirts are usually for women. Which you are not." Matteusz sighed. "I do not know why. Is stupid. But people would give you very odd looks if you wore a skirt in public."

"But everyone wears skirts!" Charlie protested. "Well, everyone wears robes, but no one wears robes on Earth and skirts are the closest thing to that other than dresses, but dresses look very strange."

"On Earth, girls wear skirts. Not boys. Except kilts, but you are not Scottish. Kilts are strange...you are not supposed to wear underwear with them."

"What?" The look on Charlie's face told Matteusz that he was getting strange ideas about Scottish people. "Isn't it cold in Scotland?"

"Yes, is cold in Scotland. I told you kilts were strange." Matteusz stole a kiss, wiping that confused look off Charlie's face for a moment. "Anyway. Kilts do not matter."

"I still don't understand why a piece of clothing is only for one type of person. How would people even know your type of person anyway?" Matteusz still had very little idea of the type of world Charlie had lived in before this, but he knew it was very, very different.

"Well, you've seen girls. They have...chests. And higher voices." This was not territory Matteusz wanted to be going into right now.

"I can't really tell," Charlie admitted. "I don't really look at anyone's chest except yours when you're not wearing a shirt."

Matteusz stole another kiss at that admission, hoping Charlie wouldn't notice the light blush on his cheek. "I hope it is nice to look at," he said, and then smiled. "But, really, most humans can tell someone's gender."

"So they can see I'm male," he said, but he still looked very confused (and Matteusz was slightly relieved that his boyfriend did in fact consider himself male). "But why can't a man wear a skirt?"

"Because society says so." Matteusz slumped back on the bed in frustration, absolutely not ready to explain human gender roles to an alien prince. "Surely Rhodia must have had some ideas about gender. You call yourself prince, not princess."

"That's just my gender," Charlie said. "It's linguistic only. It dictates slightly my duties as a royal, but I mostly ignored those particular expectations."

"Right. Well, humans have a lot of expectations about gender. Is hard to explain. You should google it for better answers." Questioning the foundations of society was giving Matteusz a headache.

"And those expectations involve dictating the clothes that a person wears? What happens if you just ignore that?" This was starting to build up into a conversation about threat and violence, which Charlie had proved many times that he did not understand.

"If you ignore that, people do not like it," he explained, trying to think of an example Charlie would understand. "They stare. Some maybe shout. Is like how people give us odd looks when we hold hands in public."

Charlie frowned. "I don't understand humans," he decided, and Matteusz laughed. Sometimes he wished that Charlie understood a little more, and in subjects like this he worried a little about how Charlie could get himself into a bad situation, but he couldn't wish his boyfriend to be a different person entirely.

"Me neither," he admitted. He sat back up, wrapping his arms around Charlie and pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. "Never mind."

The subject was dropped for the rest of the day, and the next afternoon Charlie came home after going shopping by himself and Matteusz had to admit that Charlie looked pretty good in a skirt. Part of him knew it wasn't safe, but he couldn't tell Charlie that now, because he was clearly comfortable wearing it. He had a feeling that the skirt would probably end up abandoned on the floor by the end of the evening, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered as long as Charlie was happy.


End file.
